A Hop, Skip, and a Jump

by alliterator

A student threatens to jump and Buffy has to counsel her down. Parody.

Title: A Hop, Skip, and a Jump
Author: alliterator
Summary: A student threatens to jump and Buffy has to counsel her down. Parody.
Spoilers: Anything up to "Help."
Disclaimer: All characters belong to the great and powerful Joss. Please ignore the man behind the curtain.
Feedback: Yes, please.
Author's Note: This is the first parodyfic I've written, so it might really stink. I learned how to write parody from Mad Magazine (and such infamous parodies like "Boston Pubic" and "The FakeTrix"), so excuse me if my humor is a little crude.

Clickity-clickity-click. Buffy tapped her stylish-yet affordably manicured fingernails onto her desk while the kid sitting in front of her blubbered on about her boyfriend or something. Buffy wasn't really listening. Finally, she grew tired of the girls incessant chattering and said "If you don't like him, why don't you just dump him?"

"But I don't want to hurt his feelings," the girl went on.

"Hey," Buffy said, really wanting the girl to leave her cubicle so Buffy could go back to invading Dawn's private life, "I had to send my boyfriend to Hell, so believe me, he's lucky to just get his feelings hurt. Now go." The girl left.

Suddenly, another student entered. "I was wondering," he asked, "if you would like to go on a date with me?"

"Let me check my calendar," Buffy looked up at the wall and realized she had no calendar. She decided to fake it, so sat staring at the wall for about five seconds, which wasn't hard. She had practice doing it last year between the second and third I-want-to-live epiphanies. Finally, she turned back to the kid. "Sorry, I don't have any time to go on a date with an obnoxious loser," she said even though she had been herself a loser in high school.

Suddenly, Principal Wood ran into her cubicle. "Buffy," he panted.

"What is it?" Buffy asked. "Are we scheduled for some more sexual tension? Or should I make an inappropriate racial comment?"

"No," he said catching his breath, "there's a kid on the roof that says she's going to jump."

Buffy looked at him. "And this has to do with me because?"

"All our counselors are out sick," he said. "Didn't you wonder why you had been getting so many kids?"

"I just sent them to the nurse," Buffy said. "So what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to persuade her to not jump," Principal Wood told her, "I tried saying one of my encouraging pep talks, but she said that just made her want to jump more."

Buffy stood up. "I know how to handle this," she said and then left.

"But Buffy," the Principal shouted after her, "the entrance to the roof is the opposite direction."

Buffy, ignoring Principal Wood's words, walked immediately to the door which had a sign that said 'NO STUDENT ACCESS.' Well, it used to have a sign that said that. Now, it said 'ALL STUDENT ACCESS' with small print below it reading 'must have hall pass with you at all times or crazy vampire will spout incoherent words at you.' Buffy opened the door and walked in.

"Spike," Buffy called out, "there's a kid up on the roof that I need to help, but I'm going down here because I think you might know something, even though the kid has absolutely nothing to do with any that's even in the basement."

"Wetter is better!" Spike shouted.

"Spike," Buffy asked, "can you help me?"

"I here Pluto is nice this time of year," Spike answered, "maybe butterflies can eat Peaches, but cocoons are no good for William."

"Why are you so crazy, Spike?"

"I already told her you. Don't you remember?" Spike said in a moment of clarity.

"Oh, the soul? I thought you were joking."

"I hurt the girl. William's a bad, bad man."

"Does that mean you're still upset about you trying to rape me?"

"Well, duh!" Another moment of clarity.

"Get over it!" Buffy shouted. "You're more upset about than me and I'm the one you tried to rape."

"By God, you're right," Spike said, "and I hate being crazy. It's really hard to make up all those crazy things to say. I mean, if I'd known I would be crazy, I would have paid more attention to Dru's babblings."

"Good, now tell me what you know," Buffy said.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?!?" Buffy said shocked. "Then why did I even come down here in the first place? Was it because some part of me wanted to see you?"

"No," Spike answered, "contractual obligation."

"Well, that's just great," Buffy said. "There's this stupid kid on the rood who wants to jump and you don't know how to stop her."

"You could try listening to her problems," Spike said, carefully preening his hair. Now that he was sane again, he wanted to make sure his hair recovered the lack of peroxide.

"Oh, go back to being insane," Buffy said, annoyed that he was actually making sense.

"Alright," Spike said, dropping the comb and messing up his hair again. "Nutter butters are good for your teeth!"

As Buffy left the basement, she had an epiphany (which, surprisingly, had nothing to do with living). "I know," she said. "I'll call Xander and Willow and see if they can help me stop the kid from jumping."

Buffy brought out her cellphone and immediately dialed Xander's number. Suddenly, she heard a distant ringing in the halls and walked towards it.

"Xander?" she asked as she saw him, "What are you doing here?"

"Um, Buff," he looked at her, "this is a construction site."

Buffy looked around. She noticed that she had wandered into the unfinished section of the school. Xander was standing next to a wall with a hammer in his hand. "Oh," Buffy said. "I need help. Can you get Willow here?"

"I'm already here," Willow said, walking up beside her. "I decided to talk to Xander after visiting Tara's grave."

"I need you're help," Buffy told them. "There's a kid on the roof that's threatening to jump. I need you to persuade him not to."

Xander pondered for a moment, and then picked up his hammer. "I can explain to him how life is like a hammer and nail. You see –"

 "Will," Buffy interrupted him, not wanting to hear the hammer and nail story again, "can you do it?"

"I don't know," Willow said thoughtfully. "I would've told my story of addiction and recovery, but now I know magic isn't addictive, I've got nothing." Willow thought some more and then said "You could try Dawn. She's a kid and might know how to persuade the student not to jump."

"Great idea!" Buffy exclaimed. She turned around and pulled out her cell phone again and dialed Dawn's cell phone number.

"Hello."

"Dawn, it's me Buffy. I need your help."

"Buffy, I need to tell you –"

"Not now. There's a student on the roof that's threatening to jump." Buffy turned a corner trying to find the entrance to the roof, silently cursing the Hellmouth's ability to shift the school walls. No wonder all the students are late to class, she thought.

"I know."

"I want you to persuade her not to." Buffy saw the entrance to the roof, which, unlike the basement, still had the 'NO STUDENT ACCESS' sign on it.

"But –"

"No buts. I'm going to the roof now and I want you to be there." Buffy reached the entrance to the roof and walked through. On the rooftop, she saw Dawn next to the ledge. That was quick, she thought.

"Buffy, there's something I want to talk to you about," Dawn said.

"No time," Buffy looked around, searching for the student that was threatening to jump. "I can't see her anywhere. Where is she?"

"That's just it, Buffy," Dawn said, "I'm the one that's been threatening to jump."

"What? Why, Dawn? I thought you got over you whole 'I want attention, so I'll steal things' phase."

"I did, but now I'm in 'bored out of my freakin' mind' phase and I just want to end it all."

"Dawn," Buffy gripped her sister by her shoulders. "I know how you feel. The hardest thing to do in this world is live in it –"

"What?!?" Dawn screeched. "That's the same speech you gave me when you jumped off the tower!"

"So," Buffy put her hands on her hips. "You used it when the musical demon was here. Besides, do you know how hard it is to make up one of those speeches? How hard it is to get just the right amount of pathos?"

"What does the dog from Enterprise have to do with all of this?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "I thought you liked patrolling."

"Yeah, but now I realize that your life is just one long boring fight and it's just going to end in pain and death, so I figure that I might just end it all now."

Buffy pondered this for a moment. "Then why don't you?" she said. "You've been threatening, but you haven't jumped so far."

"I will, I swear," Dawn looked at her and then looked over the edge, "except I'm afraid of heights."

"You're afraid of heights? What about when you were tied up on that tower and wanted going to jump off to close that portal?"

"Well, I knew you were going to stop me. Like you would let you little sister jump off a tower into a giant portal."

"Oh, shut up," Buffy said and pushed Dawn, accidentally sending her over the edge. "Wow. That wasn't so hard. It actually felt kinda good." Buffy looked over the edge and saw that Dawn had survived thanks to the four or five king size mattresses Principal Wood had brought out in case she did jump. Buffy saw Principal Wood give her a thumbs up and she gave one back.

As Buffy walked back to her office, she felt like a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Pushing Dawn off had made her feel the one thing that she hadn't felt in a long time: relaxed. "Maybe I can do that again some time," she said.